the last stop on our andalusian roadtrip wasn’t really in spain, but in the uk… sort of. on our way back home, we detoured through gibraltar, to celebrate my birthday and the 30th country/territory we’ve ever been in.
we crossed the airport’s runway, got a sunday roast on a local pub and even had time to write a postcard home, before heading back. 30 countries down, 180 or so to go! :)
so, this gorgeous place where we had our afternoon tea is called bletchley park, and it’s not just a gorgeous park…
… but also the home of the WW2 codebreakers, and a fantastic museum!
it was a beautiful sunny day this past august when we took the train to bletchley from london, not knowing very well what to expect… but optimistic on the prospect of exploring 2 things i enjoy: science and history! having seen the imitation game not that long ago, and having studied cryptography some years ago in university, we were definitely curious.
on the entrance, we got ourselves 2 spy kits (supposedly for children, but way too much fun to pass on) and then just followed the clues, decoding the mysteries of the park one by one.
we were stoked to discover that bletchley park is wonderfully interactive! not only did they preserve much of the furniture and materials from the war time, they also use clever projections to show people talking and working on the actual rooms, along with screens that you can use to learn the basic concepts of cryptography.
the museum takes place in several huts and houses around the park, and you can see the effort that went into giving the visitors a sense of what life was like here… and the dimension of the puzzle they were trying to crack against the clock, over and over, every single day.
one of the highlights of the trip was to see a demonstration of (a reconstruction of) the bombe, the machine used to decrypt enigma’s messages!
with our geeky hearts filled to the brim, we hopped on the train back to london at the end of the day, ready to finish our kits and write some postcards for friends. it was the perfect day! :)
one of the things i’ve had on my list for a long time was to go try a british afternoon tea. the finger sandwiches (so reminiscing of the famous five), the scones and other sweets, always looking delicate and neat on the three-tiered stand, sounded almost magical. the choice of places and themed-teas in london can be overwhelming though, and being newbies, we didn’t have that many references to go by… so we picked for convenience of location, rather than tripadvisoriness. and it was great!
i was so excited about it that i forgot to take proper pictures, but everything was as delicious and delicate as i imagined. the place was great as well, imbued with history… but i’ll tell you about that on another post! :)
yoda <3!
so, october!
once the boy recovered the use of his legs, we jumped to london for a few days. we hugged our friends and their babies, chased after dogs in the park, ate lots of good food and then, too soon, it was time to come back home and catch up on everything: work, laundry, gardening… speaking of which, we planted an olive tree and some passionfruit and bougainvillea vines — fingers crossed they’ll survive our black thumbs! towards the end of the month, we did our annual trip to bielefeld to catch up with friends and for some postcard-writing time as well. and then, we came back home and hosted our canadian friend lynda, on one of the last legs of her month-long trip around europe.
it was a good, full month… but now we’re glad to be home-sweet-home, with no trips on the horizon! :)